Le Orme
Gioco di bimba

With this one, counting also those of certain ghost friends of mine whom I no longer hang out with, it makes a hundred reviews. To celebrate, I'm publishing a story inspired by a song that is part of my musical imprinting: “Gioco di bimba” by Le Orme.

Certain pages of Italian progressive rock, being among my first listens, have remained in my heart, even though I soon moved on to prefer other musical genres.

This piece, which was a huge commercial success, has accompanied me since I was about eight or nine years old and thus represents a sort of initiation. To my eyes, and I know well that I am saying nonsense, it almost holds the same value as certain ballads by Crimson, “Moonchild” above all. Besides, even in “Moonchild,” a dreamy female figure emerges.

It's a song with a fairy-tale and naive text that, however, suggests something else, perhaps the end of childhood, perhaps a sexual initiation, perhaps (some said) even a rape. Yet, above all in its lyrical quality, let’s admit it, it’s a mysterious and magical song.

When I say two-bit lyricism, I don’t mean to imply anything negative, on the contrary. For instance, some things by my beloved Nick Drake surely belong to an aesthetic category of the same kind. Everyone knows, however, that those two bits often find a miracle yard more generous than the one that denied wealth to Pinocchio. Fortunately, our hearts and souls don’t have aesthetic prejudices.

Then I must say that, apart from the beauty of the melody, much is due to the quality of Aldo Tagliapietra’s voice, a singer perhaps not highly gifted, but capable, every now and then, of taking us where all is mystery and beauty.

And now the story. It’s called “Bastardena” (which in my dialect means little girl) and I hope you enjoy it.

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“Who cares about the sea,” the giantess Renata always said, and maybe she thought about the sea the first time. And the sea, the first time, was accompanied by her grandmother. That day, all merry, they took the coach while it was still dark, and so they arrived early, so early that there was no one on the sand. The light was so white that Renata and her grandmother closed their eyes, then reopened them, then closed them again. And all that opening and closing only reinforced the enchantment as if each time the world emerged from a dream.

When it was time for café au lait, they headed to the small bar. And the small bar, somehow, was almost more magical than the beach. Seated at the table, in fact, they felt like queens. Someone put a coin in. And a voice that was more magical than the small bar (which was more magical than the beach) and whiter than that light (which now, however, was no longer white) spoke as if in a fairy tale:

“Like an enchantment, she rises by night, walks in silence with eyes still closed.”

It wasn’t a fairy tale, though; it was just a song, and she and the grandmother spent the whole morning in that bar using up all their coins to listen to it again. The sea lost its importance dramatically, even if it was the sea and even if it was the first time.

Only the girl from that song mattered, and that girl had a “face of milk” and “moon rays in her thick hair.” Also, it mattered that the voice, magical and white, was sad and at the same time not, because, precisely, it was magical and white, and that which is magical and white cannot be sad.

But above all, it mattered that the child was Her, was Renata... and was also the grandmother. That both of them, together, had never been just a little wrinkled old lady and a girl who grew up too fast.

That the grandmother, unlike other adults, had never tried to stifle her imagination, considering it indeed, with great wisdom, a very precious gift. A gift that she returned with a sort of very sweet and rustic grace barely veiled with peculiarity.

Thus, the simple continuation of everyday life, almost a music of always the same gestures, was enriched by the unbridled imagination of a girl who invented stories about flowers and plants, stones and birds, and, to cut it short, about almost everything her eyes landed on.

It was as if the grandmother played with her ancient gestures a magical two-bit flute, and the girl sang her amazement of being in the world. That if music and words can suffice themselves, it's only when their meeting occurs that the doors truly open. As for sufficing oneself, on finding in oneself a vital rhythm, the grandmother had ended up showing the young Renata the most perfect example. Having become widowed, she managed not only to accept her solitude without trauma but to consider it even a privilege.

When the grandmother died, she was fourteen years old. By then, she was already monstrous, and her schoolmates were, literally, half her size. No one, however, dared to mock her. Once the grandmother had told her, “I keep things going trying not to get a bitter taste in my mouth. And if there’s a bit of bitterness anyway, all I need is to look at you to bring the sweetness.” Now, it’s known that everyone keeps things going, even kids, and sweetness that doesn’t cloy the mouth is rare. I know of a fellow, a somewhat crazy character, who if someone approached starting to speak with overly sweet-laden phrases, would start to spit as if to send away from his mouth that horrid taste even worse than bitterness.

But Renata’s sweetness was just good honey and just a teaspoon, as more than that even that cloys. “You’re proper as honey, little girl, a spoonful of good honey,” her grandmother told her another time, and there’s no need to translate this phrase, right? Yes, everyone keeps things going, so why refuse that teaspoon? Indeed, no one managed to, neither the most unrepentant bullies nor the aspiring miss universe from the first row.

But we were talking about the grandmother’s death, and this is what Renata would have wanted to do: bury her in the yard and take her place, that is, live alone there in the countryside. She would have been perfectly capable of doing it, but she was only fourteen, and it didn't matter that her grandmother had taught her all the practical virtues, nor did her absolute psychic independence, the fact of already being then the girl of the stones and shells that she would always be, matter. Precocity for precocity, there was also love, as she was already a woman and nobody knew it. Yes, she was a woman and had lost her virginity two years before.

It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve (two years prior, that is), and the grandmother was looking with satisfaction at the beautiful nativity scene she had built herself, molding all the figurines. It was a passion she had since a child and that she still cultivated, dedicating almost all her free time to it. Over the years, it had become huge, occupying, during Christmas days, a whole side of the big kitchen. Some figurines were indeed very old, and when she brought them out again, it seemed like finding old friends, and so she spoke to them, especially about that spoonful of honey, which was her greatest pride. That time she started chatting with the flute player figurine:

“God bless those caresses of those two kids...”

“But isn’t the little girl with a teaspoon a bit too young for these things?”

“Young? But she’s as big as an oak!!!”

“Yes, but she’s twelve.”

“So what, talk about you who was already old when I made you!!! You should be decrepit, yet here you are still playing that flute!!!”

“And so?”

“So if she is too young for certain things, you are too old for others, and yet you still do them. And then...”

“And then?”

“Then if it's normal for a nativity figurine to talk, what’s strange about a girl making love?”

The figurine smiled. Then resumed playing the flute. Meanwhile, upstairs, Big Mama was discovering all the sweetest caresses.

But how was it possible for an old farmer woman to accept such a thing? Oh dear readers, what can’t the freedom of judgment do!!! And what the habit of a special relationship that binds two people over the years, accustoming them to the magic of uncharted and unbeaten paths? Oh she and Renata knew perfectly when it was time to take off the dancing shoes to put on the boots, and they knew it because they had mutually gifted each other with courage and imagination. And it was thanks to this that the grandmother could see well beyond common sense, a monster so strong that it didn’t just speak to her with the voice of a nativity figurine and used a thousand other foul mouths to whisper ignominies. And not the mouths of others, since nobody luckily knew anything. But the mouths of fear, the mouths of “if someone knew.” The only thing she could do, when that fear turned into panic, was take a deep breath, as explaining that this girl, strong as an oak and more independent than any other female being in that stupid village, was already a woman would serve no purpose.

The day of the grandmother's funeral was really dull and empty for Renata. What did her father have to do with it? What did those poor and stupid relatives have to do with it? They shouldn't have been there, or maybe she shouldn’t have been there, as she had already held her private funeral. A few moments after her death, in fact, making sure no one saw her, she had cut a small lock of her grandmother’s hair, took the flute player figurine and ran off towards what, among the many magical places around the house, was perhaps the most magical of all, namely the great oak by the railway.

Because yes, the railway passed by those parts, and trains had often been protagonists of her childhood fantasies. In one of these, she imagined that one of the passengers on the early afternoon train was the small juggler with ice eyes, so sometimes she went to greet him, often accompanied by her grandmother. And she continued to do so for years until a small juggler truly appeared, even if he didn’t have ice eyes. And he wasn’t, really, even a juggler. He was, to be precise, a twenty-year-old student who almost every day went to Bologna, to the university, and had noticed that little enormous girl who was occasionally accompanied by an old woman. He was immediately struck, and never would he have imagined that she could be only twelve. Long story short, it was he who was making love with Renata while her grandmother was talking to the flute player.

Arrived at the great oak by the railway, she began to dig near the roots, buried the lock of hair and the statuette, covered the small pit and said: “Grandma, grandma, go to heaven if you want, or else go wherever you like. Should you feel lonely, show yourself, as I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

Then she started to sing: “like an enchantment, she rises by night, walks in silence with eyes still closed”...